Friday, July 31, 2009

CONTEST!!! One LCB scores a copy of "Goddess of the Hunt" and goodies, all courtesy of Tessa!

From Michelle: While, sadly, we never can offer you a trainwreck here at RBTB, today I encourage you to hop on board the Tessa Dare Express, the lightning-speed making of a stellar career that's happening right before our eyes. Then, when everyone else's riding on the bandwagon, you can say, "Oh, I've been reading Tessa forever..." Tessa begins a "Back2Back" GuestBlog series here at RBTB that coincides w/the releases of her Back2Backs, beginning with her spectacular debut, "Goddess of the Hunt." Please offer Tessa your warmest, "Can't I choose more than one Bachelor?" Bella buongiorno...From Tessa: Michelle, thank you so much for inviting me back to talk about "Goddess of the Hunt!"

From the titles, to covers, to admittedly even the plots, my historical romance trilogy is fairly heroine-centered. But I am quite proud of my heroes, too. And I’m so glad to have a chance to come share each of them with the Bellas here at RBTB! Over the next few months (this is a back-to-back trilogy!) I’ll come by to give a short introduction to each hero and share an exclusive excerpt.

Okay, now stop thinking of Clive Owen and come back to me. I know, I know. It’s difficult.Occupation: English lord. Attire: Typical Regency gentleman’s sporting attire: breeches, shirt, cravat, waistcoat, topcoat or greatcoat, knee-high boots (Hessians). However, in the course of the book, Jeremy often ends up sans cravat and coat, and soaking wet. *grin*

Personality: Intelligent, jaded, aristocratic and autocratic, brooding, intense. Haunted by a childhood tragedy, but never whiny.

And Jeremy’s an alpha, through and through. "Goddess of the Hunt" takes place during an annual hunting party amongst four old friends. Jeremy’s the group’s undisputed leader. As “the responsible one”, it’s fallen to him to keep their host’s young sister, Lucy Waltham, out of trouble.

You see, Lucy’s had a crush on Toby for years, and Toby’s about to marry another girl. As she indicates in the first scene of the book (which you can read on my website, TessaDare.com) Lucy naively plans to seduce Toby so he’ll have to marry her instead. Jeremy’s task is to keep her from carrying out her plan…but matters get complicated when he develops a serious attraction to Lucy himself. His inability to tame the headstrong hoyden has him frustrated and driven wild with lust:

Exclusive Excerpt: He tried to believe he had better, nobler reasons for keeping Lucy out of Toby’s bedchamber. Perhaps he did, somewhere, in some forgotten recess of his mind, ﬁled under Gentleman. But a wild, savage, lust-crazed Beast was currently prowling the earth in his skin, and the idea of Lucy in any man’s bedchamber—other than his own—incited the Beast to violence.

Jeremy raised his gun to his shoulder, took aim at a distant tree stump, and ﬁred. Chips of rotten wood exploded into the air. Henry, Toby, and Felix stopped in their tracks and stared at him as though he had burst into song. “There was a pheasant,” he said.

Three heads swiveled in unison to regard the cratered tree stump, then turned back to face him. Henry opened his mouth to speak, but Jeremy silenced him with a look.

The Look.

There were few aspects of his father’s demeanor Jeremy found worth imitating, but The Look was one of those few. Like it or not, he had inherited his father’s ice-blue eyes and heavy brow. With a bit of practice, giving someone The Look came as easily as ﬂexing a muscle.

The Look meant different things at different times, depending on the recipient and the occasion. It could mean, “Hold your tongue.” It could mean, “Lift your skirts.” On one particularly memorable occasion, it had meant, “Put down the damned candlestick before you embarrass us both.”

But whatever The Look meant, it conveyed authority. The Look said, without equivocation, I lead, and you follow. There was only one person in Jeremy’s acquaintance who remained utterly impervious to The Look. And damn, if she wasn’t leading him around by a satin ribbon.*

So that’s Jeremy, or at least the surface of him. Bellas. Have you ever been on the receiving end of The Look? And if it was the sexy kind -- and came from a pal of one of your older brothers whom you just happened to be crushing on, perhaps -- do dish the story of that flirtation! And who are your favorite alpha heroes?

Join Tessa at RBTB August 28 to meet Regency Bachelor #2 w/a shot at scoring a copy of her August release, "Surrender of a Siren!" Oh, he's hawt, lemmee tell ya...

Do you know the secret of "Mr. Darcy, Vampyre?" Tuesday, check out Amy's Take on this hot neo-gothic romance sensation from across the pond, and Wednesday, meet MDV author Amanda Grange(Mr Darcy's Diary), GuestBlogging from England.

Hi Tessa, how cool to have you here since I've only just yesterday seen PJ raving about Goddess Of The Hunt over at RNTV.

I don't think I've ever really been on the receiving end of The Look, since I'm normally the one giving it. I always see my best friend Tami in front of my inner eye when we were in that whirlpool years ago and that group of unnerving brats joined us and splashed the water and fell all over each other and, yeah, you see. And then Tami said, very seriously: "Lisa, give those kids The Look."

So I did.

I've never seen those kids again. Seriously. They saw me looking at them and couldn't get out of that pool fast enough. Interesting that I should have such powers, I'm still amazed and quite often using The Look now... *GRIN*

1972 I received "The Look" from a guy the first week of college...He proceeded to come on over and ask me to move in with him...I declined!!

Alas, he wasn't a friend of my older brother... BUT after my freshman year of HS I did serve punch at a friend's older sister's wedding and I did get hit on by one of the groom's friends... Does that count? He was a hunk but attended college, MIT.... too far away for me to even take him seriously.

I'd love to read your book it sounds fantastic! I love the idea of a dating game set back in the 1800s!!

You know, I've tried developing The Look, but in any incarnation, on me it seems to just make people laugh...

Buongiorno, Bellas! And welcome, Tessa! Thanks for the peek inside GOTH, and for the intro to Jeremy for readers who want to make him their Regency Dating Game choice. Reading this is making me wish I could go back and do a re-read right now! Ugh, if only I didn't have work to do.

Good morning my friends and fellow bellas, Hi Michelle and welcome Tessa. I've always loved that name.Hmmm the look, well according to my daughter, my husband, my co-workers and my siblings I've got it.I've stopped conversations, stopped arguments, and had my husband panting (blushing here) with the look, so I'm sure it has different subtleties in it's meanings or else I would be really embarrassed at work, right? ;-)Tessa, I haven't had the pleasure of reading your work but believe me I'm going to my local supplier for my fix tonight!!Ciao bellas and hey TGIFDeb

My copy of Goddess of the Hunt arrived yesterday. Despite spending most of the evening with about 15 friends for a girls' night out, I still managed to read 100 pages. I LOVE this book, and can hardly wait to read the rest!

I received The Look from a very sexy man. Made me feel very special seeing I was recently divorced with 3 kids too. Unfortunately, I'm the oldest, so no older brothers to worry about, but I did end up marrying the man who gave me, The Look.

I heart Jeremy at any age. His Look, his wet shirt, his brooding, the whole P&P thing he has going on. *swoon* Alas, no older brother with good-Looking friends. And my younger brother's friends... well, I think their Looks are more amusing than authoritative. Maybe when they hit Jeremy's age.

Okay, I'm back! The wonderful Mr. Dare is making coffee, and I didn't even have to give him The Look. More like The Plea, but...

Keri--ooh, I want to hear more about The Smile! Isn't it great when you know someone well enough that a slight facial expression tells you exactly what's on their mind?

Leigh, I agree--parents have to develop The Look, as a matter of self-preservation. My husband can make our children cringe in terror with The Look. Sadly, I can never seem to get the trick of it.

But LisaK, it sounds like you got it down! Later in the trilogy (hopefully this isn't too spoilery - surprise! there's a happy ending. hee) one of his friends comments that The Look is going to make Jeremy a formidable father indeed.

And PJ over at RNTV is the sweetest. She brought me homemade chocolates at the RWA literacy signing!

Oh, PJ and her chocolates are dangerous. Michelle, Rosie and I shared a cab with PJ and Gannon when we went to (um, crashed) the Harlequin 60th anniversary party. It was a little cramped in that cab - Michelle might be petite, but I'm not! So the only way we could all fit was if I put my arm around Michelle, and in the crush her face ended up in my boobs -- and PJ TOOK A PICTURE! She was laughing so hard I hoped it would be blurred, but she's too good a photographer for that. You can see the unfortunate picture on PJ's Facebook photo page. (I'm on FB as Becke Martin, my pen name.)

Laurie, he asked you to move IN with him?? The first week of college? Wow. Yeah, that's an abuse of The Look, I think. With great power comes great responsibility and all. :) I have not read that SK book, but I will put it on the list.

Host, it sounds like you are a natural! I wish it came so easily to me.

Michelle, as always, thank you so much for having me here! I love spending a day with the Bellas. I'm so glad we decided to do this on Fridays!

Tessa, you had me at Clive Owen! I picked up GOTH yesterday, and it's taunting me as I force myself to do some work instead of reading it.

Back in the day, if any of my brother's friends had given me The Look, I would have run in the other direction. Many of them were, er, on the wrong side of the law, and we're not just talking about shoplifting candy from Walmart. Ah, youth!

I've been known to use The Look on various people in my life who misbehave. Oddly enough, it seems to work.

nessa writes: I've been known to use The Look on various people in my life who misbehave. This from the woman who kept telling us at RWA, "My husband is Randy. So make sure to introduce yourself when you see him.'

Hi, Tessa! Good morning and how nice you have even gotten down The Plead. Love having you here and you're right: It's great having your Dating Game fall on 3 Fridays! Don't worry about jeremy's age; 29 is the new 28.

Sorry guys but YouTube is out, it would be totally scary and more like Carol Burnett copying Scarlett or remember "The Look" she gave as Norma Desmond, that would be me now. Yeah Michelle like you need notes, uhem. I've seen MPG and bet you have him twisted around that pinkie of yours.Have a great weekend everyone, and practice "THE LOOK" ;-)

LOL@ Becke! Like I was going to pass up a chance at that cab photo? No way!

I've never developed "the look" that would put people in their place. Guess I'm just too much of a softy because, like Michelle, they usually end up laughing at me.

When I was in my 20s I had a pretty good smile/look combo that worked really well - especially on the local Italian butcher (about my grandpa's age). I always came home with the best cuts of meat in the place. (grin)

I've met a few guys who could melt me with the look. I was 15 the first time it happened and - Whoa Mama! - was he ever lethal!

PJ- you are a doll. And Gray... Ooooh, Gray. Don't get me started on Gray. I can't wait for next month, either.

Bellas, I am going to sign off for a bit - my children have put up with a lot of inattention during release week, and I've promised them a short trip to Disneyland today (we live very nearby). But I will have my trust iphone with me, so I'll check in from Small World!

Waxing over a beautiful roast is very Italian. My mother's family was Italian, and few things made everyone happier than a good cut of meat. I'm still searching for the elusive roast that will match what my mother and aunts used to cook.

Hi Tessa and Congratulations again !!My favorite alpha hero...mmmm... it's hard to pick ONE. Maybe I'd chose Cal Bonner from It had to be You. He's always in charge, always a rock to rely on... a great alpha hero !!

Congratulations Tessa on your new release! I tried giving my kids The Look as I was raising them and sometimes it even worked like the time my son went crying to my husband that Mommy was giving him the Evil Eye.

OK, so maybe I'm lying. I actually do have a Look that affects MPG/male perspective guy (aka my husband, dave) in a very significant way. When I give it to him from across any room, he knows it's time to make haste and blow the clam bake.

Because it means I'm up to my eyeballs in things I want to make wicked cynical observations over, and can't possibly wait another minute to let fly. Inevitably, I know this will lead to his laughing uncontrollably and his eyes most likely tearing and his saying, "you frighten everyone who really knows and loves you." He means in a good way, of course.

Hey, Bellas! Congrats, Tessa. Your book sounds fabulous and funny. Great combo! Hope you're having a good day. Just here in sunny Los Angeles at my brother's apartment. Going to Santa Monica today! Yay!Hmmm...The Look. I don't really think I ever give The Look, unless it's the 'Stay Away Or Die" Look, but I have recieved it a few times. Sadly, yes, from some of my older brother's hick friends. Ok, and maybe from my brother's roommate, but I'm not very good at recognizing it and usually wonder if I have something on my face, hehe. But, I certainly wouldn't mind it from Linkin Park's lead singer or that hawt guy on Star Trek. Then again, I guess I have a thing for guys without hair on their heads, tattoos, and deep, gravelly voices....is it getting hot in here?Have a great weekend!

principessa! yes, it's getting hawt! how cool of you to check in from your vacation! Sounds like you'll have some cool stories to tell when you get back. nobody tol me linkin p's singer's hot. off to check youtube. have lots of fun!

Thnx, Michelle! When I get back home, I'll fill you in on all the deets! Yes, and Linkin Park's lead singer is HAWT! How dare no one fill you in, hehe. Grrr! So is Nero's No. 1 henchman, or First Officer, Ayel, on Star Trek. He is pretty darn hawt! He can interrogate me any day! heheHave a great weekend!

Princess Bumblebee, I am right there with you. Eric Bana's Nero was the highlight of Star Trek for me. And I have been known to listen to some Linkin Park. "Bleed it out" is one of my get-pumped-to-write songs. We had a great day at Disney, thanks! 6 rides in 3 hours is not too shabby, especially for a busy summer's day.

Hi, Jane - Oh, I love Benedict Carsington. And all his brothers. I hope you like Jeremy when you meet him (although he is more like Lord Imperfect!)

Hi Tessa!!I am waiting to dl the book to my sony, but it is sitting in my cart waiting for me.

Depends on which look- the one I use that sends people backing up before I blow? Or the one that has usually been preceeded by a sarcastic comment or observation and no more words are neccessary? used that one recently at the NickleBack concert in regards to the people around us. Usually involves lots of laughter.

FYI- I later found out that he Ray(1972 guy) had been in a band in Philly and I guess he was used to ladies dropping at his feet when he gave them the look. I was relieved when he moved on to another girl.